July 26, 2010 –Los Angeles, SIGGRAPH 2010 – The Khronos™ Group today announced the immediate release of the OpenGL® 4.1 specification, bringing the very latest graphics functionality to the most advanced and widely adopted cross-platform 2D and 3D graphics API (application programming interface). OpenGL 4.1 is the sixth update to OpenGL specification in two years, continuing the rapid evolution of this royalty-free specification. This new version continues to maintain full backwards compatibility to enable developers to begin using new features whenever they choose, while portably accessing state-of-the-art GPU functionality across diverse operating systems and platforms.

The OpenGL 4.1 specification has been defined by the OpenGL ARB (Architecture Review Board) working group at Khronos, and includes the GLSL 4.10 update to the OpenGL Shading language and is accompanied by a number of extensions introducing cutting-edge functionality to the OpenGL standard. The full specification is available for immediate download at http://www.opengl.org/registry.

New functionality in the core OpenGL 4.1 specification includes:

Full compatibility with OpenGL ES 2.0 APIs for easier porting between mobile and desktop platforms;

The ability to query and load a binary for shader program objects to save re-compilation time;

The capability to bind programs individually to programmable stages for programming flexibility;

The ability to set stencil values in a fragment shader for enhanced rendering flexibility;

Features to improve robustness, for example when running WebGL applications;

Callback mechanisms to receive enhanced errors and warning messages.

Lastly, Khronos has simultaneously released a set of ARB extensions to enable as much OpenGL 4.1 core functionality as possible on previous generation GPU hardware; providing maximum flexibility and platform coverage for application developers.

Re: Official feedback on OpenGL 4.0 thread

Nice!

I especially find the following stuff great:

* Program Binary Support - ie. "shader blobs"
* Debug Output Notification - one of the best API enhancements! With D3D11 and PIX it is soooo great when you get real error-messages, instead of the dreaded GL_INVALID_XXX. Now IHVs please make good use of this debug-functionality and give us detailed error-messages please!
* Shader Stencil Export - finally the stencil buffer becomes useful again (haven't been able to make much use of it lately, because of the missing support to manipulate its content through shaders).

In general the spec seems to become more and more mature. No drastic API changes, only few new/improved features, but ones that are really useful.

As far as i can tell the most important features for future releases would be:

1) direct state access
2) multi-threaded rendering support

Can't think of other important features at the moment.

Really great work from the ARB through the last 2 years!
(No, i haven't forgiven you the GL3 thing, i still would have preferred a clean cut.)

So, how many hours will it take nVidia and AMD this time to announce the "world's first GL 4.1 driver" ? :-D